THE SADDLE-BACKED, OR NILE LECHWI 

 (ONOTRAGUS MEGACEROS) 



ARABIC Teel. SHILLUK Gyek 



ALONG the loo-mile stretch of White Nile which I have 

 defined as the "Western Bend" to be precise, that 

 between the Sobat River and Lake No (latitude 

 9-50 North) the traveller enters upon the territory of 

 this unique African antelope, the saddle-backed lechwi. 

 At this point it is to the north bank only that search 

 should be directed, since the southern shores (being 

 firm "cotton-soil") are abhorrent to the tastes of a 

 swamp-loving animal. 



The geographical range of the Nile lechwi restricted 

 as it is is, nevertheless, not so narrow as the above 

 sentence might convey, since beyond Lake No it is 

 prolonged westward up the Bahr-el-Ghazal, southward 

 up the Bahr-el-Jebel (or Mountain Nile) precisely so 

 far as "Sudd," or sudd-like conditions, extend on either 

 waterway say as far as Tonj to the west, to Bohr on the 

 south respectively (roughly about a couple of hundred 

 miles each v/ay). For a rare and highly specialised 

 species such limits are dangerously narrow, and the 

 Nile lechwi deserves the utmost consideration under 

 the Sudan game-laws. Luckily its preference for almost 

 impassable swamp affords it some degree of natural 



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